What does Angela Ahrendts, the ex-CEO of Burberry, actually do at Apple?
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What does Angela Ahrendts, the ex-CEO of Burberry, actually do at Apple?
It's been 16 months since Angela Ahrendts resigned from Burberry and started work at Apple as its Senior Vice President of Retail and Online Stores. Just what has she been doing since then?
In an exclusive with Fortune magazine, and together with Apple CEO Tim Cook, Ahrendts gives her first in-depth interview since joining Apple. On why news of her has been scant since her hiring, Ahrendts says that it was a deliberate choice:
“I didn’t dare say anything prior to six months,” Ahrendts says. “My dad used to tell me, growing up [citing Abraham Lincoln], ‘It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and relieve them of all doubt.’ So I kept remembering that and chose not to overcommunicate.”
Ahrendts was formerly the CEO of luxury brand Burberry from 2006 to 2014, where she was credited with revitalizing its business. After Ron Johnson, Apple’s Senior VP of Retail Operations left in 2011, Apple hired John Browett to take over its stores. It turned out to be a bad hire, and Browett was quickly fired after just five months.
The next person Tim Cook wanted to take over the job was Ahrendts. Ahrendts reveals that she was nervous when she met Cook:
She says she told Cook, “ ‘Don’t believe everything you read. I’m not a techie.’ And he looks at me, and he goes, ‘I think we have enough techies here.’ And I said, ‘But you don’t understand. I’m not even really a great retailer. I hired great retailers.’ And he said, ‘Well, last time I looked we were one of the highest-productivity-per-square-foot stores of any company on the planet. So I think we have a lot of those too.’ ”
Cook, however, seems to have nothing for praise for Ahrendts. In the interview, he says:
“It felt like she’d been here a decade her first day,” he says. “I knew she was going to be off the charts, but she’s even more off the charts than I thought. She came in so fast, there was no [learning] curve. I’ve never met a single individual like that before.”
So what has she been doing since she moved from London to California? A lot of behind the scenes listening, it appears:
In the meantime, she embarked on a Hillary Clinton–style listening tour, visiting more than 100 stores, call centers, and back offices so far, answering questions, hearing complaints, and bestowing her infectious energy and empathy on employees.
Ahrendts has also launched an internal app for retail staff, called Share Your Ideas, in which they can suggest improvements or lodge complaints. She’s also starting an initiative where store employees can apply for transfers around the world.
Whereas Apple had previously split its operations between retail and online stores, Ahrendts’ position combines them both into one for the first time. To read more about what that merger entailed, and the ripple effects it produced for the launch of the Apple Watch, as well as what Cook and Ahrendts see as the future of Apple’s stores, check out the original Fortune article: ‘What the heck is Angela Ahrendts doing at Apple?’
Source: Fortune.
